POTUS Events: Debating Health Care and Honoring WASPs

By Sarah Lovenheim
President Obama attends his routine presidential briefing at 9:30 a.m., followed by the economic briefing and a meeting with senior advisers.

He holds an online town hall meeting on health-care reform at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va. at 1:15 p.m. During the Q and A session, he's slated to take questions from social networking outlets, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett will moderate the town hall.

At 4:45 p.m., Obama is expected to sign legislation awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a group of females who flew 60 million miles of non-combat military missions from 1942-1943.

Mabel Rawlinson was one of the 38 WASP that made the ultimate sacrifice and she definitely deserves the congressional medal.

It was at Camp Davis on the night of August 23, 1943, that Mabel lost her life when her airplane crashed and was consumed by flames. She became one of the very special women, numbering only thirty-eight, who served and died as pilots for the Air Force in World War II.

Since WASP were technically considered volunteer civilian pilots and not Air Force pilots, no monetary compensation was available to the Rawlinson family for her funeral expenses.

The other female pilots at Camp Davis pooled their extra money and assisted in the expense of transporting Mabel’s casket back to Kalamazoo for burial.

JRM2's situation results from having HMO care rather than Health Care. I think he can be considered to be under insured. I am sure that cost led him to the decision he made to go with the HMO.

Obama's program will cut costs in some cases possibly using the HMO model with wider acceptance of coverage. What he surely can do is limit the reimbursement of doctors who use tests as a substitute for examining and taking a careful history. Doctors who do procedures on a disproportionately large number of normal people can get there reimbursement cut to a level that will make it in their best financial interest to have the usual number of normal tests.

We need a better health care system and that can be had by applying financial incentives for doing things right.

My wife was 8 months pregnant with twins, one of which has a life-threatening congenital heart disease. One day, she was feeling very ill and went down the road to Pinnacle Health Care Emergency Medical. Upon arriving she presented her health insurance card (Aetna HMO), after 45 minutes of suffering while filling out paper work the receptionist announced, “Oh, we don’t have a contract with Aetna” and suggesting she drive to an ER at the local hospital. Clearly in need of treatment, and sobbing she begged them to “see” her because she was unable to drive herself. After agreeing to pay a $100 co-pay, they agreed to treat her. The doctor saw her for 15 minutes, and with no treatment told her to go to the ER. She managed to make it to the hospital on her own though it was very hard for her. After sitting and suffering for another two hours she was seen and given an IV drip. The bill: $2,500 and $300 from Pinnacle.

One month later she gave birth to our twin boys at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. After two days one of my boys went into open-heart surgery to try and save his life. Shortly after the birth she developed a horrible rash, we spent two days in Doctor’s offices trying to get her treatment while her insurance agency blocked treatment at every turn because she was not referred by her practitioner (who’s office was 90 miles away from Stanford). Finally after one week of fighting with Aetna (and the rash spreading rapidly), they agreed to pay for her to be seen by a dermatologist who prescribed a medicine. When we went to pick it up we found that Aetna had successfully blocked paying for the prescription. After about another week of fighting with Aetna (and the rash now covering over two-thirds of her body) we were able to pick up the prescription after paying a $50 co-pay.

So first, an insurance agency and Emergency Health Care provider block treatment of a very ill, 8 months pregnant woman with twins, one of which has a congenital heart defect then bill for nearly $3,000 dollars for a total of 15 minute of treatment. Then, blocks treatment for two weeks to the same woman who has to care for a newborn infant while the other is in open-heart surgery.